CSCwe56395 Failed to install add "Error: No error or error string"

[samuel.heinrich]

I ran into an issue today with a 9300 stack running 17.12.4.

As usual, I copied the IOS-XE image from USB to the local flash, but the install process consistently failed. None of the following variants worked:

install add file bootflash:cat9k_iosxe.17.12.06.SPA.bin

install add file flash-1:cat9k_iosxe.17.12.06.SPA.bin

install add file flash-2:cat9k_iosxe.17.12.06.SPA.bin

install add file flash:cat9k_iosxe.17.12.06.SPA.bin

There is a known workaround where you boot the image directly:

boot system flash bootflash:IOS-XE_image.SPA.bin

However, this forces the device into bundle mode instead of the regular install mode, which I wanted to avoid.

What finally worked was installing the image directly from the USB device:

install add file usbflash0:cat9k_iosxe.17.12.06.SPA.bin